You Take The High Road, I'll Take The Low
by MizJoely
Summary: anonymous on tumblr asked: Hey, by chance is there a story where the children of Sherlock and Molly travel back in time to the past? And I said: Not that I know of but what an interesting idea! And thus this little two-parter was born.
1. How You Meet Our Father

"Look, I know he's a bit of a berk, but trust me, Mom...lly, he's the man you fall in love with and marry during your gap year!"

Molly gaped at the earnest young man who claimed to be her son from the future. "Are you mad? I'm not even taking a gap year, I'm going straight to Uni!"

His eyes widened in an expression of pure alarm. "No, no! You have to take that trip to Scotland or it'll all be ruined!" More quietly he added, "We won't exist."

"If he's from London why don't I just skip Scotland and meet up with him here?" Molly argued back. Not that she believed any of this of course. She was just...humoring the local loonies. Yes, that was all. "Maybe after I've finished my studies, got a job at a good hospital like St. Bart's -"

"No!" That was the young man's twin sister, the one who looked an awful lot like her own Aunt Eleanor, or would if her Aunt was sixteen instead of just this side of sixty. "It has to be in Scotland! If you meet him after you're both older, not only will we never be born, but it'll take you ages before you even admit you love each other! And that'll only be because someone forces you into it! Thanks for THAT gaffe, Auntie Eurus," she muttered as a baffling aside to an already baffling conversation.

"Look, just because you know an awful lot about me and supposedly about this Sherlock bloke you claim is your future father and my future husband, doesn't mean you're actually our kids from the future," Molly argued, wondering how she'd let herself get drawn into this mad, mad conversation in the first place. Why she hadn't just dismissed the twins as either pranksters or loonies and gone on her way?

Why hadn't she? Was it because of the family resemblance she thought she spied in the girl? Was it because of the way the boy sounded just like her father when he used to passionately argue sports and politics with her Uncle Seamus?

Or was it because of those cat-like blue-green eyes they claimed were inherited from this mysterious man they so desperately wanted her to meet? In _Scotland_?

Or maybe it was because of all the little details they knew about her, about her life, things they couldn't possibly have learned without speaking to her or members of her family. And even Uncle Seamus wouldn't go along with a mad prank like this one _had _to be...

"You'll tell him he looks sad," the girl suddenly said. "The way you always said Granddad looked sad when he thought no one was looking. He'll be rotten, he'll deduce the hell out of you, but you'll see that he's struggling to stay clean after getting out of rehab, and you'll just…click."

Molly felt as if every particle of oxygen had just been whooshed from her lungs. "How, how can you - not even my mum knows that I saw how sad Dad looked, that last year…how can you know that?" she cried out.

The girl took her hand and gave her a sad smile. "Because you told us," she said simply.

Six months later Molly found herself on a train to Glasgow, not sure if she was going to meet her destiny or not, but somehow looking forward to seeing those blue-green eyes on this mysterious "Sherlock Holmes" and judging for herself if he was, indeed, the man she was going to marry.

* * *

_A/N: Coming soon, Part 2: How I Met Your Mother_


	2. How I Met Your Mother

_A/N: Welp, here it is, folks, the final (long overdue) chapter of this bit of nonsense. References to drug use in this chapter, which turned out a bit longer and quite a bit angstier than originally planned. Extra bonus points for anyone who spots the Cabin Pressure reference._

* * *

"_He'll be rotten, he'll deduce the hell out of you, but you'll see that he's struggling to stay clean after getting out of rehab, and you'll just…click."_

She's nothing much to look at: short (he studiously ignores the tiny voice in the back of his mind peeping up 'petite'), mouth too small for her (_delicate, heart-shaped_) face, eyes too big and brown, hair too messy and brown (_cinnamon - really, cinnamon?_) and pulled back in an unflattering pony-tail, clothes baggy and hiding what might be a somewhat attractive figure even if her breasts are tiny (_"But you like tiny tits!" "Shut UP!"_).

As he initially summed her up: nothing much to look at.

And yet…

The eyes are intelligent, warm, friendly. Ditto the smile (_except for intelligent, no such thing as an intelligent smile, don't be stupid, Sherlock, I'm the smart one, oh wonderful, when did his inner monologue morph into Mycroft?_)...damn, where was his train of thought again? If only he had something to help take the edge off…

"Hi."

He looks up sullenly, not liking being startled or spoken to by strangers on trains, even one whom he had been idly (_intently, shut UP, Mycroft!_) studying in order to pass the time on a long, boring journey. Scotland. Why Scotland? Why not Scotland? Oh yes, because it's not HOME, he'd rather be anywhere but home this summer, so Scotland and Uncle Rudy's hunting cabin in the highlands it is. Boring, dull, but at least it's a different boring and dull than…

He looks up again, realizes the girl is still standing there, smiling down at him, an awkward attempt at a holiday hook-up? Also bored? About to offer him a religious pamphlet?

Whatever it is she has to offer, including her (_actually rather attractive_) self, he's not interested.

Or so he tells himself.

"Go away," he says, slouching further into his hard, plastic seat and folding his arms across his chest._ If you won't listen to my words then at least read my body language, for Christ's sake!_

She doesn't go away. She has the unmitigated GALL to sit next to him, nudging his sprawled-out legs closer together in order to do so. He scowls at her; she smiles serenely back. "My name's Molly," she says. "Molly Hooper." And sticks out her fucking hand like she's Miss Fucking Manners herself.

"Uni student," he says, the words pouring out of him rapid fire, rat-a-tat-tat, unstoppable even if he wasn't fighting the urge to shoot up. "Gap year. Scholarship student, medical studies - paediatrics or GYN - dead father, distant mother, on the pull. Not. Interested." He punctuates his final words by leaning towards her, invading her private space with as much menace as he can muster - and as many have learned, Sherlock Holmes can muster quite a lot of menace when in the mood. Which he almost always is, these days._ "You used to be such a sweet boy,"_ he hears his mother say in that wistful way she has, and shakes his head to clear it of her voice.

"Not on the pull - well, not the way you mean." He stares at the girl. Her smile's gone awkward, nervous - why? Not because of his words or actions or she'd have left in a huff long ago. No, it's something else, something he can't deduce, and that's...interesting.

He likes interesting; so little about the world fits that category these days, including his uni studies in chemistry. Hm.

"And it's not paeds or GYN, it's pathology," she adds, further intriguing (intriguing? Yup, that's the right word) him. "Because of Dad's cancer. It's good to be able to give people answers, to give them some sort of peace of mind. And knowing how a loved one dies, that's, well." She falls silent for a second, teeth worrying at her bottom lip. "That's...important." She gives a sharp nod, as if to emphasise her choice of words not only to him, but to herself as well.

"Sherlock Holmes," he says, sitting up abruptly. Resting one arm along the back of her part of the joined seats. "Imperial College. Chemistry."

Her eyes flash with something that looks suspiciously like relief - why? His own narrow at the mystery. "You weren't sure that I was who you were looking for," he pronounces, interruptin her while she stutters 'King's College, Medicine' in answer to a question he hadn't asked and already knew (at least half) the answer to. "Did my brother send you? Are you following me?"

Her eyes widen in alarm as his anger rises. "N-no! No!" she protests. "That is, I don't even know your brother, or your sister, I swear!"

All right, now this is getting boring. "Don't have a sister," he snarls, turning away from her in disgust. "Go write your article about someone else, you'll get nothing from me."

"I'm not a reporter!" she says, indignant; going on the attack because she's been found out? No, righteously indignant; he's got it wrong, he always gets something wrong, thought it was just the paeds/GYN thing, but no, he's got this wrong as well. "I just - I met someone, two someones actually, and they said - well, never mind what they said!" She jumps to her feet, glaring down at him. "You done nothing but say awful things, they said you would, but I just wanted to - never mind."

She turns and starts walking away, but he's too intrigued to just let her go so he reaches out. Grabs her wrist. Meets her glare with one of his own. "Sit. Down," he growls, pointing at the seat she's just vacated. "You don't get to just start such an insane conversation and then walk away without explaining yourself, Molly Hooper - if," he sneers, "that's even your real name."

She plonks herself back into the seat, digging into her rucksack for something - ah yes, driver's license, student ID, credit card (singular, probably co-signed by her mother), all bearing the name of Margaret Ann Hooper. "It's my real name. I mean, it's Margaret but no one calls me that but my Great Aunt Mathilda, at least, she was the only one until she died last y...look, that's not important. What's important is that two people claiming to know us both said that this is how we meet - in Scotland, during my gap year and I guess yours as well? - and that you're struggling with recovery and addiction and, I dunno, they had your eyes and how was I supposed to know they just made up an Aunt Eurus?"

Eurus. The name echoes through the chambers of his nascent mind palace, reverberating through every hall and passage. Doors are blown open; an Irish setter runs panting up to him only to morph into a young boy with ginger hair and freckles waving a wooden sword and…

Nothing.

**oOo**

He wakes up in a hospital bed, Mycroft by its foot, speaking in a low murmur to the attending physician. He looks around; no sign of Molly Hooper but why would she be there? Surely he'd only hallucinated her, perhaps rehab was what he needed after all, instead of toughing it out on his own, but why was Mycroft here and not Mum and Dad?

Mycroft, with his ears like a bloody cat, must hear the slight movement he makes, and turns to look at him. "Sherlock," he says. "Nice to see you with us in the land of the living."

"Mycroft," Sherlock sneers. "How necessary to see you."

"Thank you doctor, that will be all for now," Mycroft says, not to his brother, obviously. The doctor frowns, flips his chart shut with an annoyed snap, and stamps out of the room in a pet. Good; graduated bottom of his class, drug habit of his own, cheating on his wife with another doctor and already running to fat in his mid-thirties. Useless.

"So." Mycroft takes a seat next to the bed. Crosses his legs. "Let's start with why you ran off to Scotland rather than coming home where your...condition...could be better monitored."

"I'm fine," Sherlock huffs, even though he's clearly _not _fine, else he wouldn't be here with little to no memory of how he arrived (ambulance, obvious, boring, moving on). "She shouldn't have called you."

"She?" Mycroft raises an expressive eyebrow. "Don't you mean 'they'? How do you know who contacted me?"

"It...wasn't her, then? The girl from the train?" He curses himself for even bringing her up; she was likely an hallucination brought on by withdrawal, wasn't she? Nothing else about that entire conversation makes sense, otherwise.

"Oh yes, it was the girl from the train. Miss Molly Hooper. After you'd been taken away by ambulance. Apparently she got my number off your mobile. You really should keep that device locked, you know," he chides. Always the overprotective big brother; Sherlock rolls his eyes but is secretly relieved to know that Molly had been - was - real. She waited for me, handed it over to me when I arrived, then presumably returned to her travels."

Sherlock sits up, plucking at the IV line attached to the back of his hand. "I need to find her," he says as Mycroft tries to protest. "She knows about Eurus."

_That _gets his brother's full attention. Mycroft goes still, his eyes darkening, so quickly anyone but Sherlock might have missed it - but his hands are clenched tightly on the arms of the chair. "Who or what is Eurus?" he asks.

"You tell me," Sherlock shoots back impatiently. "My sister - _our _sister - I presume. And Redbeard...Victor," he suddenly remembers, once again seeing the ginger would-be pirate child in his mind's eye. "She didn't know about him but she did know about Eurus, even if she didn't know her name. So I have to find her, and you have to help me, Mycroft." He holds his brother's uneasy gaze with his. "You have to help me find both of them, Molly and Eurus."

And, much to his surprise - Mycroft does.

**oOo**

"Well?"

"He met her." Violet turns with a bright, happy smile and hugs Victor. "He met her, Vic. And he got Uncle Mycroft to fess up about Auntie Eurus. We're safe." Her expression turns doubtful as she lets her brother go as abruptly as she'd embraced him. "I think. Better check." She gestures toward his shirt pocket.

Slowly, carefully, Victor Hooper-Holmes pulls out the photograph and holds it so they can both see it at the same time.

There they are, the two of them - standing side by side, as vibrant and alive-looking as their parents, who stand directly behind them, one hand apiece on the twins' twelve-year-old shoulders. "We did it!" Victor crows. This time he initiates the hug, holding his sister tightly as she weeps, just a little, in relief.

The future is safe; Auntie Eurus will get the help she so desperately needs; Uncle Rudy's legacy will be dismantled, and the Holmes family will reconstruct itself into the close-knit, loving family they grew up knowing.

Crisis averted thanks to the intervention of the man they only know as "the Doctor".


End file.
